Kyrie was dozing on the bed. She would have liked to fall fully asleep again, but this seemed to be beyond her ability while a small creature lay down purring, squarely between her breasts, and punished any attempt at moving with sharp little claws at the base of her throat and a sort of soft "mur" that sounded like an admonition.
So she lay there, on the bed, on her back—which was far from her favored sleeping position—with a patch of sun squarely in her eyes. She tried to move her head just a little sideways. The needlelike claws got her at the hollow of her throat. "Mur."
"Yes, yes, I get it. I'm not allowed to move. I get it."
"Mur!"
She opened a cautious eye, in time to see Not Dinner curl up into a ball. But he remained facing her, and one of his eyes opened just a little.
Kyrie would have giggled, but she was fairly sure that this would have brought the claws out again, so she closed her eyes and tried to get back to dozing. Which was not exactly as easy as it might sound, while her mind kept giving her images of Tom fighting the dire wolf. There was something wrong about that creature. Besides the fact that it should have been extinct long before humans walked the Earth. The way it had moved . . . She shivered, and instinctively lifted a hand to ward off the claws, and the phone rang.
She jumped up and grabbed the bedside phone, but the ringing continued, and she realized what was ringing was her cell phone, and jumped for her purse, which was propped up against the sofa.
The phone showed Rafiel's number. She opened it. "Yeah?"
She remembered, belatedly, that she'd dumped the kitten on the bed and hoped he wasn't hurt. A look at him revealed him angrily licking himself and pointedly ignoring her.
"Kyrie?" Rafiel said. He sounded weird. Detached and breathy as if he had lost his voice and were speaking on echoes alone, unable to put any emotion in his words.
"Yes? What is wrong?"
"Nothing. Everything is fine."
"You sound very odd."
"Oh, got . . . something in my throat. Look, I don't suppose you can meet me at your house?"
"At my house? Why?" she said. And when he didn't answer immediately she said, "Is it about the bathroom?"
"Exactly," he said. "The bathroom. I've got someone to fix it. If you'll just meet me there . . ."
"When?"
"Now?"
"No can do. Must de-stink and put clothes on."
"Oh, why bother? We're only going to take them off."
"What?" She actually removed the phone from her ear and looked at the caller ID, to make sure that it was really Rafiel.
"I'm sorry. Bad joke."
"Very bad joke." Rafiel hadn't said something like this since she and Tom had got together. She wondered if he was trying to revive that rivalry, then realized it was probably just his idea of a joke to break the tension. He'd been with her in the SUV, and he hadn't even looked at her in a suggestive manner. "Okay. Give me half an hour," she said, matter-of-factly. And hung up.